Managing Co-occurring Conflicts in Teams

This study extends prior research on conflict in teams by showing that a team’s chances of appropriately managing one type of conflict depends on what other types of conflicts are co-occurring. We interviewed 44 managers from different industries who had recently participated in a negotiating team, asking about within-team conflicts and how those conflicts were managed. The data showed that task conflict increased the likelihood that teams managed co-occurring procedural conflicts appropriately, but that procedural conflicts decreased the likelihood that teams managed co-occurring task conflicts appropriately. These results explain why some teams fail to realize the theorized benefits of task conflict and why procedural conflict does not always have a deleterious impact on team performance: The co-occurrence of these different types of conflict can alter what strategy a team uses to manage conflicts.     

团队精神型领导与研发团队创新行为的关系——团队自省性和团队外部社会资本的影响

研发团队创新行为对企业获取竞争优势至关重要。以往研究相对忽略了精神性因素对团队创新行为的动力机制。文章借鉴创新成分理论和创造力系统理论,聚焦于精神性因素对团队创新行为的动力机制以及团队外部社会资本的调节效应。通过对106个研发团队329名研发团队成员数据的统计分析表明：团队精神型领导对团队创新行为具有显著正向影响;团队自省性在团队精神型领导和团队创新行为之间具有部分中介作用;团队外部社会资本调节了团队精神型领导对团队创新行为的正向影响,团队外部社会资本越高,团队精神型领导对团队创新行为的正向影响也越强,反之越弱。团队外部社会资本还调节了团队自省性在团队精神型领导和团队创新行为之间的中介效应,团队外部社会资本越高,团队精神型领导通过团队自省性的中介进而对团队创新行为的影响也越强,反之越弱。研究结论拓展了中国组织情景下精神型领导在团队层次的影响效应研究,也拓展了团队创新行为的精神性动力因素及其动力机制的实证研究。     

Does servant leadership foster creativity and innovation? A multi-level mediation study of identification and prototypicality

The purpose of this multi-level study is to examine how servant leadership affects both employee creativity and team innovation. Drawing from social identity, in particular, relational identification theory, we found on the basis of a two-nation Asian sample of 154 teams that servant leadership promotes individual relational identification and collective prototypicality with the leader which, in turn, fosters employee creativity and team innovation. In addition, our study suggests that the mediated effect of leader identification is strongest when team climate for innovation is high.     

Team Foresight in New Product Development Projects

In today’s uncertain business environments, management tools, originally designed for more stable environments, no longer serve the purpose of the organization because high levels of uncertainty make the future difficult to predict entirely. In this sense, foresight, which implies both anticipating and designing the future in a proactive manner, seems to be a rising concept. Despite growing awareness of the importance of foresight capability in terms of predicting and enacting the future, empirical research on team foresight is scant. Based on sensemaking theory, this research explores the antecedents and consequences of team foresight within the context of new product development. In studying the data from 255 new product development projects using the partial least squares structural equation modeling, this study discovers that team flexibility—in terms of operational flexibility, task autonomy and resource flexibility—is a significant antecedent of team foresight. Moreover, the results particularly emphasize that new product development teams, with a proficiency in visualizing the future through making sense of technology-, market-, and project-related information, can successfully produce new products of quality in a timely manner. Managerial and theoretical implications of the study are discussed.     

Three facets of satisfaction and their influence on the performance of innovation teams

This study investigates and demonstrates the mediating effect of job satisfaction between team deftness and team comprehension and the performance of 168 project teams involved in major innovation projects for their companies.The study demonstrates that there are at least three independent facets of job satisfaction: instrumental satisfaction with the way the task is progressing, social satisfaction with the way the team members interact with one another and the organization, and egocentric satisfaction with the individuals' perceived benefits to themselves.Previous studies have shown that innovation team performance is directly correlated with the two antecedents of performance: team deftness, which reflects how effectively the team works to achieve the innovation's purpose and team comprehension, which reflects how the team understands the linkages among key variables driving the innovation outcome. The study argues that these different facets of satisfaction differentially affect the ways in which team performance is affected by deftness and comprehension.There are three major results:

• 1.1. Social satisfaction mediates the relation between team deftness and performance—as social dissatisfaction of the team increases, it appears to impede the ability of the team to deploy its deftness in accomplishing the project's purpose.
• 2.2. Instrumental satisfaction mediates the relation between team comprehension and project performance—as instrumental dissatisfaction increases, it appears to impede the ability of the team to deploy its comprehension to accomplish the project's purpose.
• 3.3. Egocentric satisfaction does not appear to mediate the relation between team deftness and project performance.

Some managerial implications of these results are discussed.     

Innovation leadership: Best-practice recommendations for promoting employee creativity,voice, and knowledge sharing

Innovation—the implementation of creative ideas—is one of the most important factors of competitive advantage in 21^st century organizations. Yet, leaders do not always encourage employee behaviors that are critical for innovation. We integrate existing literature on the critical factors that serve as antecedents of innovation, including employee voice and knowledge sharing, which in turn lead to creativity and innovation. Based on existing empirical research, we offer evidence-based recommendations for managers to become innovation leaders by: (1) developing the right group norms, (2) designing teams strategically, (3) managing interactions with those outside the team, (4) showing support as a leader, (5) displaying organizational support, and (6) using performance management effectively.     

Goals,Conflict, Politics,and Performance of Cross-Functional Sourcing Teams—Results from a Social Team Experiment

Strategic sourcing is carried out in cross-functional teams to account for the complexity and multidimensionality of modern procurement decisions. However, such teams not only enable the integration of distinct interdependent skill sets and viewpoints, they are also characterized by functional goal misalignment. We focus on the resulting behavioral challenges, namely conflict and politics, and their effects on team satisfaction and rationality, which ultimately leads to observed outcomes. We test our hypotheses in a structural equation model based on data gathered from 468 participants in a social team experiment. We find a mediated effect of goal misalignment on political behavior via two types of team conflict. Political behavior, in turn, obstructs rational team sourcing decisions and reduces team members’ satisfaction with the process. Our study indicates that behavioral challenges in the framework of Organizational Buying Behavior not only co-occur but affect each other via mediation. Hence, managers need to closely monitor the escalation chains’ origin, task conflict, which constitutes a necessary condition for further emotional dissent and political biasing. We contribute to the understanding of the challenges in cross-functional sourcing teams, thereby providing advice to executives in their pursuit to rationalize and improve sourcing team decisions and their outcomes.     

高校教学团队创造力的内涵研究

近些年,我国高校教学团队已成为提升高等教育质量和教学研究水平的有效途径,而高校教学团队创造力是从事教学改革活动的源动力,是高校教学团队的生存之本。深入研究高校教学团队的创造力,应该从教学团队的内涵、人员与组织结构特征、团队创造力概念等方面进行分析,科学界定高校科学团队创造力的内涵,并在此基础上探索高校教学团队创造力的形成过程、形成机制、影响因素以及对教学团队创造力的评价等问题,使高校在激烈的市场环境中获取竞争优势。     

Contextual Factors and the Creativity of Frontline Employees: The Mediating Effects of Role Stress and Intrinsic Motivation

Creative frontline service employees may be crucial in ensuring organizational performance. However, scant research has investigated the antecedents of service employee creativity. This research applies Role Theory to enlighten this issue. The findings reveal that: role conflict and role ambiguity have opposing effects on creativity; Role Theory complements Cognitive Evaluation Theory as a mediational mechanism for the influence of contextual factors on creativity; and, against current thinking, contextual factors also affect creativity directly. The results underscore the need to reconceptualize the mechanisms by which contextual factors influence creativity, and suggest how managers can promote creativity through the work environment.     

Job demand stressors and employees’ creativity: a within-person approach to dealing with hindrance and challenge stressors at the airport environment

Given the competitiveness of twenty-first-century airport landscape, catalyzed by airports’ evolution toward multi-service, and market-driven firms, a thorough investigation into employees’ creativity and its antecedents at the airport environment is warranted. Adopting the two-dimensional job demand stressors – outcome relationships framework and the cognitive-relational theory of stress, the current study interrogated the challenge (i.e. workload and time pressure)/ hindrance (i.e. role conflict and role ambiguity) stressors – creativity curvilinear relationships, and the buffering effects of within-person resources – dispositional mindfulness, and core self-evaluation. Using multi-sourced, cross-sectional data from employees in three airports in Ghana, the research findings showed creativity to have a U-shaped relationship with role ambiguity and role conflict, but with time pressure the relationship was an inverted U-shape. Employees’ workload showed a near-linear relationship with creativity, flattening at high levels of workload. Core self-evaluation displayed itself as an effective buffering component on role ambiguity – and time pressure – creativity relations but not role conflict and workload. Dispositional mindfulness interacted with role ambiguity, role conflict and time pressure – creativity relations, but not workload. To optimize employees’ creative performance, the study findings make a strong case for attending to individual-level factors necessary for stressors management. Further implications and recommendations are discussed.     

The Effects of Cultural Diversity in Virtual Teams Versus Face-to-Face Teams

Diversity in the national background and culture of team members is common in virtual teams. An experimental study, with short term teams, was undertaken to examine the effect of cultural diversity on team effectiveness and to examine if this effect changes depending if the team worked face-to-face (F2F) or virtually. Heterogeneous teams were created that had greater diversity than homogeneous teams of individualism/collectivism values, different languages spoken, country of birth, and nationality. The teams worked on a desert survival task either F2F or virtually (via audioconference and electronic chat tools). The overall results indicated that heterogeneous teams were less satisfied and cohesive and had more conflict than the homogeneous teams, although there were no statistical differences in team performance levels. However, examining just the heterogeneous teams found that the performance of the virtual heterogeneous teams was superior to that of the F2F heterogeneous teams. The results support Carte and Chidambaram's (2004) theory that the reductive capabilities of collaborative technologies are beneficial for newly-formed diverse teams.     

Teams developing business ideas: how member characteristics and conflict affect member-rated team effectiveness

Team researchers have found that the diversity to effectiveness ratings are mediated by team conflict. Using a sample of 73 teams developing their business ideas, I found direct effects of diversity and conflict on member-rated team effectiveness. Here, I explain how the circumstances under which these teams operate can lead to these findings. For these teams, task conflict was found to relate negatively to member-rated team effectiveness. This finding contrasts with research on organizational teams, where task conflict usually relates positively to team effectiveness ratings. I also found that both diversity and average member experience influence member-rated effectiveness. These findings imply that diversity, conflict, and ratings of team effectiveness may differ for teams developing business ideas as compared to organizational teams. Thus, findings from organizational team research should be applied with caution to teams developing business ideas and possibly to new venture teams in general.     

Individual Priming in Virtual Team Decision-Making

Virtual teams have different interactions than face-to-face teams because they rely on information and communication technologies, which can impede or assist certain human cognitive processes. Past research has shown that although virtual teams exchange more information than face-to-face teams, poor decisions often result, because team members do not consider the unique information they receive from others. Drawing from cognitive psychology, our research explored a unique way to improve team decision-making through the use of cognitive priming. We proposed that priming group members to pay attention to others or to engage in counterfactual thinking would improve team members’ cognition and, therefore, team performance. Prior research with individuals and brainstorming teams has shown these forms of priming to improve performance; however, no research has attempted to use priming to improve the outcomes of virtual team decision-making, which requires deeper interaction and cognitive involvement than brainstorming. We performed two lab experiments using primes that have been found to improve the individual decision-making process. We found that priming had some impact, but it did not significantly improve decision quality. Various reasons are discussed to explain why priming techniques may not be as powerful in teams as in individuals, and future research ideas are suggested to build on our initial work on priming in virtual team decision-making.     

Building innovative teams: Leadership strategies across the various stages of team development

Globalization, advances in technology, and shifting consumer preferences affect almost everyone. Because of pressures from the external environment, organizations face rapid and constant change. The nature of work has become complicated; it is difficult for individuals to achieve much on their own. Consequently, organizations rely heavily on expert, innovative work teams. These highly evolved teams do not develop overnight; rather, they evolve and develop in stages, and the team’s leadership must change over time. In this article, I present the building blocks of team innovation, outline the internal processes that lie at the core of innovative performance, and provide critical leadership strategies for each stage of team development. I conclude with implications for developing leaders with the capabilities to nurture and build innovative teams.     

团队反思、团队心理安全感对团队创新的影响——一个被中介的调节效应模型检验

团队反思对团队产出的影响不是简单的直接作用,而是被一些情境变量调节,具有权变性。研究引入团队心理安全感和团队知识共享两个中间变量,探讨其中的中介和调节效应,建立团队反思与团队创新关系的被中介的调节效应模型。通过企业工作团队及其主管的配对问卷调查,收集变量数据,对建构的理论模型进行统计检验。结果显示,团队心理安全感对团队反思与团队创新的关系具有调节作用;团队心理安全感对团队反思与团队知识共享的关系具有正向调节效应;团队知识共享对团队心理安全感与团队创新的关系具有完全的中介效应,在团队反思与团队心理安全感交互影响团队创新关系中起部分中介作用。在统计分析的基础上进一步提出对管理实践的启示和未来研究展望。     

The relationship between training and innovation activities in enterprises

We examine the relationship between enterprises’ use of employee training (or education) as a method to stimulate new ideas or creativity among their staff and enterprises’ innovation activities. A data set of 5204 Norwegian enterprises is used. Based on correlation coefficients, we find a positive relationship between enterprises’ use of employee training and their innovation activities. This relationship is not found significant for innovative enterprises that developed the innovations mainly by themselves or together with external partners if we control for enterprises’ use of brainstorming sessions and/or work teams to stimulate new ideas or creativity among their staff. Training can, however, be argued to be indirectly related to innovation strategies, as it is combined with other human resource practices.     

Macrocognition in Collaboration: Analyzing Processes of Team Knowledge Building with CoPrA

Sophisticated collaboration software allows teams that are dispersed in space and time to work together. Nevertheless, to reach their common goals, distributed teams—and the professional facilitators who support them by intervention techniques—are faced with the communication challenges arising from dispersed settings, including task coordination and effective information exchange. When distributed teams use collaboration software, however, traces of their collaboration are left behind. These traces provide an underused source of data which can be analyzed and be used to inform the design of interventions aimed at improving collaboration in distributed teams. This paper investigates the untapped potential for understanding collaboration, and in particular, the macro-cognitive processes of team knowledge building. These processes rely on information shared and knowledge structures developed by team members which are also referred to as team cognition. We performed a qualitative content analysis applying the COllaboration PRocess Analysis technique, CoPrA, and a framework for measuring team knowledge building. Communication data was collected from 18 participants assigned to six distributed teams. While working collaboratively on a problem-solving task teams were supported with synchronous collaboration software. The results show that by using a cognitive perspective on teams, all the hypothesized processes of team knowledge building could be identified in collaboration traces. Moreover, our analysis shows that CoPrA enables us to identify key characteristics of (1) team behavior, e.g., whether teams are rather solution-oriented or problem minded, show consensus-oriented behavior, withhold evaluative arguments, discuss ideas in breadth and/or depth, or spend much effort on coordination as well as (2) behavior of team members, e.g., who show non-participation, are willing to share or predominantly guide coordination. Future research could adopt this approach to improve our understanding of the dynamics of collaboration patterns and its effects on team performance to inform collaboration facilitation in distributed settings.     

Cross-functional selling teams - The loss of control of the selling function

Selling has become dispersed through the use of selling teams that include members from functional areas other than marketing or sales. This now occurs within many firms utilising key account management strategies, within both business-to-business and business-to-reseller environments. This article is aimed at developing a better understanding of factors affecting ‘team selling’ and its impact on sales performance, with clear benefits to company management.     

Team Decision Making in Virtual and Face-to-Face Environments

We conducted a laboratory study on 65 teams performing a decision-making task. The two experimental manipulations involved the use of different communication media and decision frames. The decision frame manipulation involved informing the team to choose the demonstrably correct solution versus the solution that seemed most likely. These factors interacted to reveal novel insights about their multiplicative effects on decision processes and team psychological states. Further, main effects of the communication medium were found for team psychological states and decision behavior. Results suggest that virtual teams were at a disadvantage when the task was framed as having a demonstrably correct solution. Conversely, face-to-face teams were more effective, particularly when told that the task had a demonstrably correct solution. Face-to-face teams were more effective on all decision behaviors. Media synchronicity theory serves as a unifying framework to contextualize this research in the literature.     

Empirical investigation of the domain knowledge and team advertising creativity typology: The case of Nescafe coffee

This study proposes and tests a typology of domain knowledge and team creativity by empirically assessing the effects of varying levels of domain knowledge on the creative outcomes of the team members. Two separate studies were conducted to address this inquiry. Study one aimed at determining the level of domain knowledge of each team member in the teams. Eleven groups comprising of thirty-three business students designed eleven advertisements for the products of their own choices. Utilizing the situation judgment test and the grade earned in the advertising course, four teams were formed comprising two balanced and two imbalanced domain knowledge teams. To test the hypotheses of the study, these teams were asked to develop a print advertisement for Nescafe for the summer season (Study Two). Upon creativity assessment of the final ads by twenty-six independent creative personnel in a total of seven advertising agencies in Pakistan, the results revealed that a balanced team with low domain knowledge outperformed the other balanced team with high domain knowledge. Further, unexpectedly, one of the imbalanced domain knowledge teams also outperformed the balanced high domain knowledge team. The study in the light of extant literature presents worthwhile implications for academia and practitioners.